Overview

The Internet's explosive growth over the past decade is nowhere more visible than in Asia. Fueled by an expanding middle class, thousands of people connect to the Internet for the first time each day to explore and discuss issues that are relevant to them and their lives. This book provides an in-depth look at the impact of social media on political engagement among young citizens in this rapidly changing region of the world. Leading media scholars from nine Asian nations focus on three main questions: How frequently do Asians use social media to access and discuss political information? Does the use of social media increase political participation? What political, social and cultural factors influence the impact of social media on political engagement in each nation? To answer these questions, contributors first analyze the current state of social media in their nations and then present the findings of a cross-national survey on social media use that was conducted with over 3,500 Asian respondents. By employing a comparative approach, they analyze how social media function and interact with the cultural and political systems in each country - and how they might affect political engagement among individual citizens.

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9781453912416

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Reviews

This collection brings a valuable cross-national view of online connectivity in Asia, the world's most dynamic media environment. Both comparative and contextualized, the research confirms that social media have great potential to both circumvent state control and make a positive contribution to civic life, especially among their most avid users: tomorrow's citizens. (Stephen D. Reese, Jesse H. Jones Professor and Associate Dean for Academic Affairs, Moody College of Communication, University of Texas at Austin) 'Social Media, Culture and Politics in Asia' successfully captures how social media relates to political participation in nine Asian countries, ranging from the democratic to the authoritarian. The editors should be lauded for making the country reports comparable by relying on a common analytical framework and using the same survey questionnaire in each nation. Conceptual, empirical and comparative in approach, this is a book not to be missed by anyone interested in comparative media studies in general and the impact of social media on political participation in particular. (Joseph M. Chan, Professor of Journalism and Communication and Director of The Centre for Chinese Media and Comparative Communication Research, The Chinese University of Hong Kong)

Author Information

Lars Willnat (PhD, Indiana University) is Professor of Journalism at Indiana University. He is the author of more than 50 journal articles and book chapters and is a co-editor of The Global Journalist in the 21st Century (2012) and Political Communication in Asia (2009). He is a co-author of Empirical Political Analysis: Research Methods in Political Science (2008). Annette Aw (PhD, University of Oklahoma) is Professor at the University of Maryland University College. She is also a research consultant focusing on media-related studies for private businesses, trade associations and government agencies.

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